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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

I've recently been accused of hatin' on the cupcake cakes. Alright, you got me: I guess I can't hide the truth any longer, and it's time for me to come clean. [sigh] Ok, here goes:

Hi, my name is Jen, and I hate cupcake cakes.

Why? 'Cuz they're ugly.

Don't believe me? Keep reading.

For Shara's birthday her son asked the baker to make a "happy monkey cake" ala Curious George. Now, as a reminder for those of us who haven't watched Saturday morning cartoons in a while, here's what Curious George looks like:

And here's what Shara got for her birthday cake:

So apparently what the decorator heard was "Curious George after he's been flattened by a cement truck". That, or maybe he/she was going for an homage to Teen Wolf:

After he was flattened by a cement truck.

Yes, I understand that in concept these things are great: no clean-up, equal portions, blah blah blah, but in execution I've yet to see a nice one that wouldn't give you blue poo.

Wait - I have to take that back. If you happen to want a skinned Spiderman face, then you're going to love Alyson B.'s birthday cake:

All it's missing are little pegs holding down the edges of his mask. (Yeah, let's call it a mask; that's less disturbing than "face skin".)

Or how about this appetizing little number?

According to Mei L., this is supposed to say "Ojai! It's worth the drive!". Now, I would love to ask what the heck "Ojai" is, but I'm way too distracted by the poo souffle on the bottom. Honestly, this thing is in serious competition with the moldy camo cake in my "dry-heave-inducing" category.

What's that? You're still not convinced that cupcake-cakes are always wreckalicious? Oh, I get it: you're saying these designs have been too complicated, right? That a simpler design would look better?

Something, for example, like this?

Ah, you're right. This IS better. I mean, "round" is a concept obviously beyond the decorator's grasp, but at least she stuck with plain white frosting. Nik P. was the manager on duty at the bakery where this was ordered (and subsequently rejected). He writes, "As the manager on duty, I immediately took the appropriate action: I took a picture to post on the internet."

I like your thinking, Nik.

Have I convinced you yet? No? Ok, my last argument, at least for today's post:

Monique R. sent in this "creative" gem taken by Jen S. You can see that Pokey's head was obviously tacked on as an afterthought: it's not even on the cake board. Plus, the angle of his face makes it look like someone twisted his unnaturally long neck 180 degrees; last I checked, turtles don't walk around facing the sky. From the giant American flag he's resting on, I would assume this was taken around the 4th of July or Memorial Day, both holidays known for their inclusion of... turtles. Erm. Yeah.

I am a teacher and loathe cupcake cakes. Have you ever tried to pass them out? It's like having a shelf of overhanging frosting oozing around your hand as you pick up each cupcake. Ewwww....and usually in kindergarten it's some charming color that will make your hand and mouth neon for a couple of days. Thanks for posting to readers everywhere what a wreck the cupcake cake can be! Whew...I feel better!

Creepy monkey thing!!! It could also be a really screwy beast (ala Beauty and the Beast). Maybe the spiderman one was a party in the theme of bad guys win? I wholehearted agree with the cupcakes are not a cake substitute.... but the last one is kinda cute! It would be nice if his head wasn't about to fall off... but at least it doesn't have an EWWW factor.

I loved this cake, which was on the cover of the Jan 04 issue of Gourmet, I think. It got flack from readers that it was cliche and not gourmet, though. I think this is the way to do a cupcake cake.

Speaking of cupcakes, I was appalled to see these cupcakes on the cover of Bon Appetit, and am surprised that no one else seems to have noticed: white cupcake, pale pink circle with red raspberry center? They're boob cupcakes!

Not only are they generally ugly and deformed, they're also annoying to make many times...((I was a decorator at Albertsons for nine months...I've made my share)). Though, the baseball one CAN be done successfully...I've made many...all these other designs are awful. I don't understand why people don't just buy...cupcakes. I mean I've made a Spiderman-themed cupcake for my pastor's kid...it had red and blue frosting and a white frosting web on it...Simple, yet decidedly more appetizing than eating what's left of Spidey after a scalping...

Cupcake cakes don't work for me either, but I'm not sure you can blame cupcakity for the Ojai cake. That would look horrible on any foundation. In fact, my first reaction was, "why did someone try to make a cake representing the aftermath of Hurricane Ike?" No, I'm serious: my second reaction was, "oh, someone's celebrating they're still alive" (misreading "drive") "so I should cut them a break for managing to make a cake at all under the circumstances." And I'm not making light of the disaster: my point is that a cake that evokes such a disaster is truly bad.

My sympathies and good wishes to those who have been affected by Ike, and if I could send y'all cake, I would.

Wow, those are some pretty awful wrecks, but the Spider Man one isn't TOO bad. If they would have made is less of a ball and more of an oval, I think it would be a bigger hit, but cupcakes aren't cakes for a reason, haha!

No, they are not. The ones you have featured have always been hideous, but I know many professional bakers, including myself, who make very beautiful cupcake cakes. Don't believe me? I'd be glad to provide photographic proof!

Now, now... let's not malign cupcakes. Cupcakes are fabluous... individually. I've even seen some amazingly well decorated cupcakes. Just never in packs. I guess the lesson here is that we should be vigilant against cupcake gangs... the poor dears, they're fine on their own, it's when the get all bunched up that bad things happen to good cake.

Ok, I have to revise my previous remark. The Ojai cake would be ugly on any foundation, but the lumpiness and irregularity of the cupcake base are definitely making a contribution to this cake's resemblance to a wrecked beach area.

Also, though I know that Ojai is a place, I feel that there is probably some sort of lolcats joke to be made here, but I have to go to work now.

I hate cupcake cakes. Hate them. So much so that I even nixed the idea when it was presented for our annual recognition dinner.

Trust me, I was as tired of handing out pre-cut cakes as the next board member (have you discussed the pre-cut cake yet? what a disaster those are), but at least I was in my right mind when I suggested we go with a catered dessert.

Ugh! I am TOTALLY with you on the cupcake cake hating thing. I remember when I first saw one of those hideous things in my local grocery store...I just thought, "Oh no. I hope this doesn't become a trend." *Sigh...* It did. Blech.

I love the pseudo-Curious George! How hideous is that? I can't imagine what part of "Happy Monkey" the decorator was envisioning!!!

By the way, just so you know, Ojai is a little town in California, East of Ventura, which is about 2/3 of the way from L.A. to Santa Barbara. I used to work at a camp in Ojai. It's incredibly beautiful and definitely "worth the drive". However, not if I have to eat that cake!-Anita in San Diego

hi jen! okay, i too was at first skeptical of your cupcake-cake-hatin'. I love to make cupcakes, but, honestly, would never attempt a full-on cake. it looks like a pain in the a**. anyway, Ojai is some tropical place, I believe, but I thought the "Ojai" cake was a celebration of someone learning how to drive. I thought it said, "O Jen! It can drive!" or something to that effect.

C'mon, get it right: Easton is a bat, Rawlings is a baseball. Seriously, it cracks me up to hear of a kid named Easton, especially in conjunction with bat-and-ball sports. The produce manager at my old work was a HUGE softball weekend-warrior dude, and it surprised NO ONE when he named his boy Easton.

Although I guess it could be worse, I have heard of kids named Espn (pronounced "ess-pin")

here's one more reason not to like cupcake cakes.... http://www.bluerosecakes.com/images/cupcakeCake.jpg

ha!Though I have to say as an amature decorator and lover of cupcakes these wrecks only inspire me to create the most pretty and non weird or poo dying cupcake cake ever...well maybe not ever but that I've ever seen...

The Ojai wreck almost put me off breakfast. I'm sitting here eating a bagel w/veggies & bacon, licking the green avocado mush off my fingers whilst staring at the wreck and being reminded of the catbox poo I'd scooped an hour earlier. Bleh. Don't like the overuse of icing with cupcake cakes, but I have made some decent pixel/8-bit cupcake groupings. Sorry, no pics. Admired, eaten, then back to console to help Mario kick monkey-butt

if someone gives you a cupcake cake, you really need to think about what you did to make them not like you. real friends give you real cakes, or cupcakes that are appreciated for what they are. cupcake cakes are just cruel.

Ok, I had never heard of cupcake cakes til I got here...but I think they are hidious...and lazy. How hard is it to cut cake in similar sized pieces. I'm no rocket scientist and I can manage it. As for the 'Curious George' cupcake fiasco, that looks more like the thing that those guys tried to pass off as the Bigfoot they captured this summer. Icky.

I hereby solemnly swear that I will never attempt to make a cupcake cake. I wonder how those kiddies are holding up after seeing the Spiderman and Curious George cakes? I see nightmares in their futures.

@ the anonymous at 10:30 - No, cupcake cakes *aren't* good things to send to your kid's school for a birthday party. Decorated cupcakes are, but the cupcake cakes add this thick layer of frosting that extends past the cupcake and leads to hideous messes (and often stained fingers).

Decorated cupcakes. No utensils, no plates, infinitely less of a frosting mess.

Did anyone notice the turtle has two heads? It has the cupcake head that's off the cardboard, then it has a vaguely arrow-shaped "neck" where it attaches to the cake. I have a pet turtle, and that arrow shape is shaped much more like their actual heads! So, maybe this is in celebration of a two-headed turtle? But then you're eating it, so maybe the turtle died?

If you want a decorated cake, go with the cake, if you want cupcakes, go with cupcakes. There is no point in ruining good cake design or good cupcakes with an overload of frosting and bad form. I just don't see the point, except not needing a utensil to cut the cake apart? It's still messy pulling those apart, like the teacher said. If you're serving cupcakes to kids, because you don't want to cut up a big cake, get the individually decorated ones. They are much cuter on their small scale.

I am reconsidering my previous comment because of the Gourmet cupcake cake cover that someone linked to. I think that cupcake cakes are distasteful only when they try to disguise themselves as regular cakes. A pile of cupcakes artfully arranged but that still look like cupcakes look very pretty!

Alas, I am sad and confused. I'm a lover of cupcakes. Just cupcakes. The very term "cupcake cakes" is redundant and should be a warning that something has been altered beyond good taste. I'm a pretty practical gal, but "even portions" do not outweigh the ugly factor of these cakes. Any reasonable child would sob with fright when they saw the "Curious George" cake. I don't get it. Please let the cupcakes stand alone!

One cupcake cake I actually liked was of Elmo, but other than that, yeah, cupcake cakes are not good. Plus, the frosting to cake ratio is way out of whack. Do we really want kids to be eating that much sugar at a birthday party?!

I guess I have been living under a rock. I've been making wedding cakes for over 25 years, and never heard of a cupcake cake until this blog. I just don't get it. What does one do, just arrange the cupcakes and dump frosting on them? Does it sink into all the spaces left by trying to make a shape out of round cupcakes? Does that make for an extraordinary amount of frosting? Isn't that kind of messy when handing out the cupcakes? Inquiring minds....

Cupcakes are a stand alone dessert and shouldn't be smushed together to pretend to be a cake.

Yeah, those are all absolutely heinous. I understand why people hate cupcake cakes if this is the type of quality they're being exposed to. (I can't completely join in the hate, as I've seen in person a couple good cupcake cakes that didn't rely on two inches' worth of frosting to make the designs.)

Thank you for saving us all from the grave mistake of a cupcake assemblage! I usually think to myself, "Well, the kids won't care what it looks like as long as it tastes good." Now I'm not so sure. Freakin' hilarious!

The Van Gogh cupcake monstrosity linked PROVES the point - Van Gogh didn't paint Starry Night on a scalloped-edge diner placemat! And the photos of the stack of cupcakes is NOT the same as the cupcake cake. When you try to make a shape out of a bunch of circles - it's not always going to be pretty! Not to mention - if you WANT cupcakes, why not just HAVE cupcakes? Why do they have to pretend to be anything else??

I made ONE cupcake cake for my girls' birthdays - they were 1 and 3 years old that year. It wasn't hideous, but the amount of icing on each one was disgusting. Individual cupcakes are my birthday treat of choice now, at least until they're old enough to ask for a regular cake instead.

I saw a really cute cupcake cake at the bakery back in early August while picking up a (regular) cake for my daughter's birthday. All the cupcakes were decorated individually, however, instead of having the icing spread across them like a regular cake. It was a teddy bear, so the icing was chocolate, and the eyes and nose and whatnot were made on top of individual cupcakes. It would be very easy to pull those apart for little kids without icing going everywhere, and it was actually pretty cute. My MIL and I thought about getting it, then went with a regular cake instead.

I agree that these are horrific, but that's not to say that *all* are.

Lol I live just outside of Ojai! It is a little town in So. Cal. about 15-20 miles from the ocean, but 2.5 hr. drive from LA. Ojai is such a wonky (read: insanely Liberal and tree-hugging), crazy town... I wonder of that cake was made there; it totally looks like someone in Ojai would make it!! Seriously! Ojai is totally not worth the drive... stay as far away as possible!--Jacqui Mitchell

My cousin did a pseudo cupcake cake for her wedding (it was in a national park, on the side of a mountain...beautiful, but casual). The cupcakes were individually decorated, and the baker placed them on a tiered stand with some flowers. It was very pretty, and she got the look of a tiered wedding cake without the fuss. But I've never seen anything like what you've posted on here!

Okay, I personally think that the monkey montrousity looks like a Chewbacca mask gone horribly wrong. Maybe the decorator had never seen Curious George and was a big Star Wars fan... Or maybe Planet of the Apes?

Cupcakes are a good thing. I'd eat a whole box of them while watching a movie if I didn't lack a cast-iron stomach and I wasn't trying to keep my weight down for racing. Cupcake cakes, on the other hand, I'm not really crazy about. If they were done in the manner liz's post mentioned, no complaints. It's when people try to make them look like ONE big cake that disaster strikes!

I'm saddened that you've come across so many crappy cupcake cakes. I'm a cake decorator and generally enjoy cakes of that sort, and feel it necessary to now send you pictures of our cup-cakes, just so you can see that not all store-bought cup-cakes suck.

It probably started out no worse (well, "worse" being relative) than the "Farewel 6 Grade" cake, but then it looks like someone was transporting it some distance without realizing the sun was shining right in that car window. That must've been a very, very bad moment to open the box and... what a melted mess!

The cake with the pyramid of cupcakes on top was actually really cute. Now that kind of cupcake cake I could go with!

I worked at a bakery--cupcakery, actually--and we made AMAZING cupcakes. They tasted great and looked amazing. They would die if anyone tried to make anything like those monstrosities. Each cupcake was a work of art--none of this "cupcakes as a cake" nonsense.

Each box was scrutinized for perfection--line off? Not centered? Scrape it off and do it again.

Spiderman? No problem--each cupcake (12, 24, 48, etc.) would have a hand drawn spiderman that looked just like him flying along--all of them identical.

You are so right about cupcake cakes. We thought we could get away with it, but ended up with heinous blood-red and eggplant colored upside-down balloons. We almost sent you a picture. The icing was about 3 feet thick and composed mainly of lard, which made it a great choice for a first birthday, as the baby is now completely waterproof. Never again we will be seduced by pull-apart cake!

I have never seen cupcake cakes in England. Sadly, wherever America leads, yea must the UK surely follow.Cupcakes - yes. Cupcake cakes - o please no.It's coming, I can feel it. And we will be a sorrier nation for it.

All individual but together making up a whole pic. I don't think it's fair to say that the posted examples are the only kind of cupcake cake. That's like saying all the other wrecks represent all cakes. These are just examples of cupcakes wrecks, but not all cc cakes are wrecks.

That Spidey cake is really unsettling, and I think I know why. It reminds me of the videos from seventh grade health class that showed how AIDS screws up your immune system, in which HIV would always be a creepy, lumpy red ball with evil eyes (or worse, an actual guy in such a costume), corrupting all the cute little white T-cells. I HAD NIGHTMARES FOR MONTHS. I SWEAR I'M GONNA GO HAVE ANOTHER ONE TONIGHT.

I must agree with the poster that state that not all cupcake cakes are "wreck-tastic" I'm sorry that there are some out there that ruin it for the rest of them. I have made a beautiful grooms cupcake cake with layers! All chocolate...Oh, now I wish I took pictures of the cakes/cupcake cakes I made.

I work at a SuperTarget bakery and I HATE making cupcake cakes. Though I have to say I've made a baseball (and soccer ball, etc...) one before and it turned out perfectly fine. Some people just shouldn't be cake decorators.

I think some people might be misunderstanding what a cup-cake cake is.

A cupcake cake is not individually decorated cupcakes artfully arranged on a platter, possibly in tiers to resemble a wedding cake.

A cupcake cake is cupcakes placed next to each other then iced and decorated as if they were a sheet cake. But, because the cupcakes are not flat like a sheet cake, the decorator has to dump an excessive load of icing on the poor little cakes to create a smooth surface.

The result is a thick, misshapen sludge of icing precariouly sitting atop a group of cupcakes.

And, as a few of the pp mentioned - they are horrible to serve in a kindergarten class - icing ends up all over everything. Parents, please do us teachers a hug favor and just say no! To cupcake cakes!!!

Let's start a revloution - Praise the return of the individually decoratated cupcakes

"The baby is now completely waterproof." Bwahahahaha!!!! I needed that. Thanks.

The scariest thing about the flickr link was the discovery that there's a flickr GROUP for cupcake cakes. Though actually most of them are not wrecks and some are very well done, they all would still have been better as normal cakes, IMHO. Except this one:http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakesbyjen/2849763448/in/pool-cucpake_cakeswhich I thought was awesomely cool, but... it's not really a cupcake cake, is it? It's a clever and beautiful arrangement of individually frosted cupcakes.

What awful cakes! LOL! I sent a VERY cute turkey cupcake and cookie cake to my son's kindergarten class...and believe me, except for the head, it had alot less icing on it than those store bought things with the icing just absolutely TOWERING over the top, as thick as the cupcake itself!!! I'm a decorator myself...but I do try to make sure my cakes (and even the occasional cupcake cake) go out of my kitchen looking quite presentable. LOL.

As a cake maker/decorator I too hate cupcake cakes! I've never made one quite as awful as your pictures but they never turn out what you'd call pretty and they are a huge pain in the butt to make and package. Serving them is also icky as they look much worse once you start passing them out and there's always way too much frosting.

I hope my stuff never shows up on your site. I get people that want me to write "Under Neat That Write" on their cakes and I tell them I'd better not see it on your blog or no more cake for them. :)

1. Wilton makes square silicone cupcake thingies. I hereby declare that if cupcake cakes MUST be made for some reason, they should be made with square cupcakes. Then you'd have a lot less space between cupcakes and you'd have cleaner edges. I think you'd still get wrecks, but at least they might be a little less wrecky.

I own a cake design company, and recently have been considering the wisdom of offering cupcake cakes (something not currently available in Australia.)-------------------------------As a fellow Australian, I beg you not to :)Seriously, even the best decorated cupcake cake is just glitzed up tackiness.Cupcakes = coolCupcake cakes = tack-o-rama

Kimberly, girl I sure your a nice gal and all, but I did warn people that if I saw anything more about the lovely town of Ojai I was going to Scream' So.....

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[Eh, em,cough!]

So Holly, great picture of individually decorated cupcakes put together in a nice design, hon.It looks good even with the green icing,(now there is something that SOB cake decorator should have done to that wedding cake rather than that nasty thing he/she drip on the side.)

This was the funniest post for a while, I have tear stains - those 'cakes' are baaad.On a serious (but perhaps pompous) note though aren't cupcake cakes just a consequence of a fast food culture? Proper cakes take time and effort and are (mostly) much better for it.

I just saw a great cupcake cake at walmart this past Sunday. It was designed to look like a puppy (think maltese)..and it was...OK, I guess..the real kicker was the icing decorations on the carboard underneath. I had to stare at it for several minutes before I realized the piles of black on it were supposed to be paw prints...not piles of poo...you can imagine how enticing it was! (My camera phone sucks and I don't have a digital camera....otherwise I'd send you a picture of it...so sorry!)

The Ojai! cake reminds me of an unfortunate incident with my cat and too much tuna.

The baseball cake should be in the hall of shame. There are SO many ways to make a single cupcake look like a really cute baseball. Most of us would jump for joy if our kid wanted a simple baseball cake. I did not think there was a way to screw that up.

Everyone! Ojai is East of Ventura and south east of Santa Barbara. It is a very pretty place. Many tree huggers. By the way Larry Hagman who played JR on "Dallas" lives there. The cake looks like blobs of frosting. Yuck.:/

O.M.G. ..."Poo Soufle". I was laughing pretty hard at the curious Curious George and the cement truck comment, but then I go to the poo soufle. I am cracking up all over again as I write about it! That term will pop into my head at ramdom in the grocery store and I will maniacally laugh out loud. People will wonder... I love making people wonder. I haev been reading here for a couple weeks now. I love the drama you inject into your writing. Keep up the great work!Suze

Sam's Club has a cute Umbrella Baby Shower Cake. The baby is a little creepy looking, however, the umbrella (the important part) is really cute, in the picture online and in person (they actually look the same! LOL). My mom has bought 2 or 3 of the Umbrella Cupcake Cakes recently!! :o)

OMGsh!I was dying laughing. I thought the cake was Chewbacka (sp?).Now, I don't hate cupcake cakes. I think they're really handy at birthday parties because you don't need a fork.However, I'll agree, having made two now, that they just cannot look like the thing you are trying to portray. It's impossible.Teen Wolf. Still about to pee my pants on that one. Thanks for the laughs. Sonja

Those of you recommending the silicon cupcake-cake mold thingies...have you ever tried to actually bake a cake using one of those things?

I suggest you don't bother trying it.

I was given one of those silicon mold "cupcake" "cake" pans not long ago by well-meaning relatives. So I gave it a whirl -- for the family, not for the "real" birthday party.

Even though I've never seen a successfully decorated version of one of those things. And now I know why.

It's impossible to get those bizarrely shaped little cakes cleanly OUT of the mold, silicon or no silicon, so the sides of the cakes are malformed and crumbly. And there's no paper liners, of course. So when you go to frost the cakes, you are compelled to try to frost the sides. It doesn't work; they end up blotchy and weird.

Plus, each little oddly-shaped cake is usually much smaller than a regular cupcake.

End result: Frosting-to-cake ratio even more whacked out. Even messier to serve. Plus: Uuuuuugly.

I can make a pretty darn good "shape" cake out of standard round, square or rectangular cakes. Or I can make very cute individually decorated cupcakes. For my kids' birthday parties I often do BOTH, because we give big parties. It's just Not. That. Hard.

Those cupcake cakes, these in the post at least, strike me as being a lazy way out. If you're going to bake a cake, bake a real cake. These things remind me of those recipes where people would just slap frosting on a pile of Twinkies and call it a day.

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